Jono, Ben & Megan - The Podcast - Are People Overreacting to the Sydney Sweeney Jeans Ad?

Episode Date: August 8, 2025

We catch up with our entertainment reporter Nicole from NYC for all the latest celebrity gossip. Why are people calling the American Eagle jeans campaign tone deaf because of the wordplay between “genes” and “jeans”? How Nicole likely ended up in a scene from The Devil Wears Prada 2. How Nicole likely ended up in a scene of The Devil Wears Prada two! Nicole spills what Lindsay Lohan was up to in a nightclub and why she made a getaway to Dubai!  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The John O'Ben and Megan podcast, thanks to HelloFresh. Your home advantage for delicious midweek dinners, everyone will love. Reporting live in amongst a mountain of bagels and angry taxi drivers, welcome Nicole. How are you? That's my face. That's honestly my favorite intro I think I've ever gotten in life. That's everything. Do you still have the yellow cabs there, or they have been replaced by Priuses?

The whole one could freaking replace them. It's not, I mean, yes, there's plenty of Uber's, there's plenty of lifts. Those cabbies, I mean, I much prefer them because you get in like an Uber or Lyft now here in New York City and they're like following a GPS where you would get in like an old time cabby and you could tell them the most random like absurd street in the middle of nowhere downtown and they'll get you there in two seconds and you have no idea how they got there because they just know every single place. Put it into perspective for us because obviously so many millions of people live on the small island of Manhattan. I mean, you know, for people that haven't been there, what's the traffic like on day-to-day? Like, it's pretty nuts, right? It is pretty nuts. I mean, that's why most people take the subways or buses, because it can be.

Literally, it depends on the time of day. It depends on who's in town. It depends on if there's, like, a show at Madison Square Garden. You never really know what's going to cause the traffic. So sometimes you'll fly down an avenue, and sometimes you're back-to-back and you're like, I'm going to get out and walk. When you drive to work in the morning, do you drive your own? own car or do you take the subway or no i'm not i'm not driving my own car i mean parking here it's like

it's a i mean it'll i use my whole paycheck to park if i drove i take like the subway half the time because it gets me there in two seconds and then every once in a while when i'm feeling very lazy i'll get an uber talk about something else i just read before actually that's not getting filmed anymore that's the last series of the spinoff of sex in the city and now they've decided that's it they've done enough there's people there's word going around they've gone too woke and this is a big topic of conversation in America right now between that and a Sydney Sweeney jeans ad and many other things. Stephen Colbert losing a show. It's like the left versus the right in America have a lot of opinions when it comes to entertainment. Yeah. Yeah. You can't say anything anymore. Like I'm

hoping it's not like this for you, but I have to think very carefully before I say anything. And sometimes if I say, yeah, like, but I, it's just like things that you didn't use to have to worry about. Like, of course, I always want to be polite. I never want to offend anybody. But like sometimes I'm I'm like, that wasn't offensive. You've decided that, like, you feel this way. And it's annoying that the extremes of, like, the Democrats and the Republicans is like that. Like, we used to be able to coexist. Like, you used to be able to have just, like, a normal conversation.

You're not really ever supposed to talk politics at, like, you know, Thanksgiving dinner. But you used to be able to have a conversation. It is impossible now. It's so divided. It's crazy. So Sidney, this ad, she's, Sydney Swee's an actor and she's from The White Lotus and other massive shows. We'll play this Gene commercial for you now. So it's just referred. She's doing a gene commercial and they're saying she's got good genes and then someone's gone really deep on it going she's blue eyes, blonde hair. That's a Nazi commercial. Hell of a leap.

Hell of a leap. Yes. Yeah. It's a big, big leap. Champagne Nazi propaganda. Well, I mean, like I understand like how someone could be like, oh, that's like reminiscent. But like that's clearly not what she was. was doing or what American Eagle was doing. Are you crazy? Like that's like no one is trying to say like that we should all be Aryan. Like it's not this is not a thing anymore. Do you think obviously their genes of like their stocks have gone up because of it and you know and stuff because everyone's talking about in some ways. You know, it's it's worked, you know. Yeah. I mean, I don't know if it's because it was so like scandalous or because she's just freaking hot A.F. Like I mean that that woman is just like I mean, I was drooling.

So I think it's probably a little bit of both, to be honest. But, yeah, everyone wants to make something out of everything, every post, every comment. That's why I just get, like, so nervous now. And I shouldn't feel that way. We all shouldn't feel that way. I know what you mean. No one's happier for this gene scandal than the bloody Coldplay couple. Yeah.

Yeah, true. They're like, oh, maybe they started it. Hey, there's a Nazi. Look over there. Look over there. John O'Benn and Megan. The podcast. The Hits.

Free Care of Friday is in theaters today with the original actress Lindsay Lowen. Last time, we convinced everyone that we were each other until we switched back. I didn't want to be a part of this family, and now I'm part of some dodgy family curse. And I'm the eldest? As teenagers, we have

no power. But as adults, we can break our parents up for good. Good. Our entertainment reporter, Nicole, talking about that very shortly in New York. But firstly, Nicole, we must ask you, are they still filming the devil wears Prada in your radio building? It's done, and I wrote to your producer, I felt so bad. He's like, because you

get any video and I was like I have one like crappy little video and like I told you last week I was I had it with them I was bitter one of them out of my way out of my space but it was definitely cool it's definitely exciting but you know New York City can be crazy and once people got word that that was happening there the paparazzi were there fans were there so it got a little bit crazy if you haven't seen it on the hit's briefest Instagram Nicole uh filming them but the the on the fringes of the film set it's just a whole bunch of people filming them doing the filming are they They're not. They don't get captured on camera, these people just standing by. I'm honestly not sure. I walked out of the studio out after my show.

I want to say like the last day that they were filming, even though I didn't know it was the last day. And I walked down and someone goes, three, two, one, action. And like, I was walking literally towards a revolving door that the actress, whoever she was, was walking through. And I was like, are you not going to stop me? Maybe they wanted it because it is a building that people are in and out of. And it does say they kind of, um, block cated it off and said, if you pass here, basically, we have the right to use your face. Shit, I'll be doing laps. I'll be doing laps all day long.

Something I wanted to ask you about, Freaky a Friday. Now, I know you've had Lindsay Lohen before on your show. There's a new version of the iconic Freaky Friday with the actors back again. Are we excited about this? Very, very excited. Lindsay was like, I think that was probably one of our worst interviews because, like, I was geeked out. I was like, Lindsay Lohan, like, is she going to be on drugs? Like, is she going to be, like, crazy?

Is she going to look like, holy hell? I'm excited. It's like, I feel like everybody is, like, sort of, like, dying for her nostalgia, and that's why they keep bringing some of these movies back or doing spinoffs and things like that. Her and Jamie Lee Curtis were actually in the building last week, and they were doing a whole event. And as I was walking out of my show,

I heard Jamie Lee Curtis talking about how youth these days, everybody's like the filters and everybody's doing all the surgeries and doing all this stuff and why can't we just age gracefully? And I was like, did she know that the person sitting next to her, Lindsay probably definitely just had a good amount of surgery. I mean, because, like, she looks incredible now. She's 39 years old. Lindsay low and down.

Didn't you see her in a nightclub back in the day? With her mom? Yeah. Oh, big night. I think it was a big night, wasn't it? Yeah. Doing a few unsavory things, for sure. But, I mean, hopefully they've moved on from that because she seems like she's so good now

and she's so healthy. And she did say one of the reasons she moved to Dubai wasn't just to, like, run away escape but it's illegal for paparazzi to do what they do here in the united states there she lives in dubois yeah it does seem like she's um back in l a little bit because she's working again but yeah that's like where her home base is that's what i was thinking yeah i know what you saw on the table uh maybe it was just salt that had spilled over and they're like oh no look at the salt how we're gonna how we're gonna clean up the salt and they use their nostrils to clean up the salt so it was all above board also like the least you could have done was invite me like she didn't

Love salt I'm not a sweet girl Well Nicole Thank you so much for your time I do appreciate it as always You look after yourself And we'll speak next week